As a SF Giants fan, I gotta give alot of props to the A's doing this well close to post-season. With such a rookie roster and a "not so impressive" budget, they have surprised alot of people this year. Looking for another A's/Giants World Series

As a SF Giants fan, I gotta give alot of props to the A's doing this well close to post-season. With such a rookie roster and a "not so impressive" budget, they have surprised alot of people this year. Looking for another A's/Giants World Series

The infamous earthquake world series.. that is actually one of the earliest things i can remember in sports

---------- Post added 2012-10-03 at 05:29 PM ----------

what the heck is going on? it was 5-1 texas and now it's 7-5 oakland..

Man I am one happy camper and you all know I'm not a bandwagon fan because I was talking about the A's at the beginning of the season and then I was talking about how pissed I was when the traded Kirk Suzuki and them not having a face for the franchise but now man I am happy. I'm really happy that the Angels are not in it as well haha man I hate the Angels.

I hope they can dig deep and find that spark and passion. Hell of a time to slump, hoping we can get out of it and win the WC game. And I hope Oak sticks around so we can have a chance at revenge . I would much rather lose the crown to the As than the Angels... fuck the Angels.

Aaand Cabrera get the Triple Crown, first one in decades, since Carl Yazstremski. Now the big debate or whether he deserves the MVP or not over Trout. I say no, because topping three stats isn't the only part of being important to your team. Playoffs or not.

Oh man how hilarious, the team with the 2nd lowest salary in MLB wins the division over a team that's paying a guy around 250m over 10 years, and is the 4th highest payroll team in MLB. What makes it even sweeter is the Cardinals made it to the playoffs without Pujol's.

On the subject of Trout & Cabrera I will play devils advocate here. Cabrera has won the triple crown, awesome job by the man it's got to be said, but look deeper into things from a deeper perspective and you will see that such an achievement is NOT a guaranteed MVP - infact, looking at a wider picture it's pretty murky! Looking at it Cabrera's stats are impressive, but when you look at it properly you can see yes he's a threat with a bat in his hand, but once he's on base he's pretty much harmless - he was on base 288 times in 2012 & scored 109 times, less than half the time he was on base he scored. Trout on the other hand reached 253 times, scored 129 times, greater than 50% conversion rate - but I hear you scream, that's dependent on a team mate - yes it is, but when you're stealing 49 bases that essentially negates the extra base power of Cabrera by a long way & puts you into position to score.

Then there's the fact Trout has a higher OBP than Cabrera, so not only does he run wild on the base paths but he gets there a better percentage of the time - fuck you Moneyball right - but you can't score runs if you're not on base, you can't win games if you don't score runs! When you take into account the fact Cabrera got intentionally walked 17 times you're seeing that there's a fair amount of people simply giving in to the man, Trout was given an intentional free pass 4 times. Both took their walks 66 & 67 but you can't ignore the fact that 17 pitchers did not fuck with Cabrera and gave him a free ride!

Then there's something which is if anything an underrated way of looking at things - defense. Trout plays a range base position, Cabrera plays a reactionary position so not really comparable directly, however if you were to say to me I could only have one as a defender it would be Trout hands down - although I would add in this part that Cabrera is playing out of position. To be I would suggest that CF is actually a more taxing position given the fact you're responsible for a much larger area - CF will save you more runs (thus a better chance of winning a game) than a 3B.

If I was voting I would have to think hard about it, the fact the Angels didn't make the playoffs doesn't put me off Trout equally the fact the Tigers did make the playoffs doesn't add gravity to Cabrera's shout either - after all the Angels have a better record than the Tigers & well, lets not beat about the bush here, the West is a SIGNIFICANTLY harder division than the Central. I would most likely vote Trout purely because I believe he was a much better rounded player than Cabrera - if it was purely down to bats only it would be Cabrera every day, but a triple crown does not mean an automatic MVP!

non-playoff team, go back in time and give Kemp the MVP he deserved and I will leave the dead horse alone, but I don't see giving MVP to a guy on a 3rd place team

Kemp flat out deserved the MVP by any measure, especially when you consider Braun is a user. I don't remember if I said this in here before, but as a Tigers fan, Trout is the MVP. His hitting stats aren't that far off Cabby, his defense is way better (I think it was a 14 run saved difference last I read), and he stole a ton of bases. Trout is the MVP. Cabby should have won MVP a couple times in the last few years, he shouldn't win it because he managed to win the triple crown in his worst offensive year in the last four.

No mention of the Twins mass exodus on mlb.com but it could just be that they're slow to update or want to run with the Bobby Valentine sacking before announcing many more getting the heave ho, while it's a shame Gardenhire can't really have too many complaints, the Twins have done nothing for 2 years and had the worst record in the AL.

Bo Sux fans being typically classless over Bobby Valentine ofcourse, some want Francona back, others want Varitek & every last one of them essentially saying "thank god, about time!", can't fault a guy when it's clear the players basically decided before the season even started they weren't doing shit for him and that's before you talk about the injuries. That locker room is toxic and needs broken up as they now think they hold a lot more power than they really should do, not saying Bobby wasn't responsible for his fair share of screw ups but ultimately he was sacked because the players didn't perform for him - you can bet no clubhouses in baseball have 100% support of their manager, but in Fenway this season, none of them had any support for him.

So that's Cleveland, Boston & Minnesota looking for new managers, Houston as well, wouldn't surprise me if Miami are in the market for a new boss either, should be fun before the winter meetings kick off!